As the summer comes to an end, I can confidently say that this internship was the best of the best. I may not be completely qualified to say that since I have not had any other internships in this field, but I strongly believe it. This summer in all honesty has flown by, but I am excited for what's next.
The month of July was filled with activity and travel for me. I started the month by driving to St. Louis for the 4th of July weekend. The following weekend, I traveled to Chicago to celebrate Becky’s brother getting married. Then, the next week, I got to host my mom and grandma at my apartment in Cedar Rapids. This was my grandma’s first time in Iowa, so I got to show her all the hits. Later in the week, my brother flew in to help get my grandma home. We got to spend a few days all together before I took off to Milwaukee.
In Milwaukee, I attended my first annual meeting for Northwestern Mutual. I got to spend five days with advisors and leaders from around the country. At the annual meeting, we got to hear from many motivational speakers and some of the top leaders in the company. This was one of my favorite experiences from the summer, and I hope to attend future events similar to this one.
After my trip to Milwaukee, I traveled back to Cedar Rapids to finish my last week and a half of in-person internship in Iowa. During that time, my mom was still with me, which was a big help. She cooked, cleaned, and helped me get all packed up and ready to move back to campus. Which is coming up soon.
Though it seems like I was hardly there during the second half of the internship, I still got in plenty of work days. In July, I helped multiple people start the process to achieve their financial goals. Mixed in with these work days, there were a few days set aside for some internship fun. On National Intern Day, a couple of us traveled down to the Coralville office to participate in a ping-pong tournament. On top of that, they fed us Chipotle. After one of our days with all the interns in Eastern Iowa, we made our way to PinSeekers to show off our golf swings.
Within this company, we make it a priority to give back to the community. For impact day, a group of us went out to the Humane Society to finish mulching a walking trail for all the dogs. Though this may seem like an easy task, we definitely put in the work that day.
Overall, I’m happy with what I accomplished this summer, and I will be continuing this internship into the fall. Long-term I hope to move to the Bellingham office in Washington state, to be closer to home and living the dream out by the ocean. This dream has already started to come to light as I got the opportunity to visit the Bellingham office and meet the advisors who work there.
Cheers
Krystin